Check out the 'Otterly' amazing things

we have been getting up to:

Welcome back everybody - we have had a great first week back in Otter class! It has been wonderful to see the children come back ready for another fab term of learning. We have had great fun getting started on our new History topic; all about Mary Anning. We started the topic by taking part in some fossil hunting and as you can see we found some amazing fossils!

What a brilliantly busy term we have had! We have really enjoyed learning some Rugby skills this half term! We have learnt how to hold the ball, find space and tag others by pulling their tags off! It has been really great seeing all the children giving it a really good go and becoming better sports people each week!

We have certainly enjoyed the sunshine in Otter Class this week! Our Computing has seen us make our own Pictograms using the iPads. We had to decide what our pictogram would be about and then ask our peers to decide what they would pick. Also, we were very fortunate to be able to go on our Spring Walk this week where we began to enjoy the first signs of Spring and see more of our local area!

In our RE, we have been looking at 'Why does Easter matter to Christians?' and we began by looking at the Easter story. We had to order the story and then retell the story to our partner. We had lots of great discussion about the story and look forward to looking more into this over the coming weeks!

What a busy week! Otter class have been amazing this week, we have had Science week, tooth brushing, cross country and some amazing learning - I am so proud of them all! We had a wonderful time exploring change and adaptations during our Science activity this week and looked at plants and animals that could/couldn't live in different places! We were then given the challenge to make some caterpillars and try and use camouflage to make sure other people couldn't find them - as you can see we had great fun doing this!

World Book Week!

We have had so much fun this week exploring books and sharing our love for reading! We had a book swap, watched the masked reader and shared some of our books with Fox class! On Thursday, we dressed up as something from a poem/riddle/nursery rhyme and recited these to the class! I was so impressed with the whole class learning a poem and confidently sharing this with the class!

What a fab first week back! It was brilliant to see all the children come back ready for another term. We had lots of enjoyment during our Art lesson this week, where we began to explore colour and how different colours can represent different expressions! We are looking forward to using paint to sow this even more later this term!

Just like that another half term is over! As always, it has been a brilliant term in Otters and the children have produced some fantastic work - I am so proud of them all! We finished the term by completing our sewing project and as you can see from the pictures below, the children are all so proud of what they were able to make! It was amazing to see all the children so invested in this topic and they all completed a running stitch - well done Otters!

What a busy week we have had this week! It has been brilliant! We have got ourselves ready for our sewing finale next week by cutting material using a template, taken part in a theme day all about spirituality and our self, enjoyed learning some Spanish and we finished the week off with our visit from the Trunk Theatre! It was great fun to watch the Great Fire of London as a show, we all got the chance to sing and dance along and we even began to design London again!

We have had another brilliant week in Otters! We have looked even more into the Great Fire of London and begun to find out why/how the fire started. In Music, we have had a look at pitch and even had a go on a Glockenspiel to try different pitches out. Finally, we have just started our ne DT project of sewing and we had a go at threading a needle, tying a not and completing a running stitch! All the children were brilliant and had a great go at it - as you can see from the pictures below lots of us were super successful too!

In Art this week, we have been looking at Architecture and the differences between buildings. We then used different tools (pencils/pens/charcoal) to draw what we saw in our books! We really enjoyed looking at different buildings and using our observational skills - we are looking forward to doing more of this later in the term!

These weeks are flying by, I cannot believe we have finished week 2 already! We had another great week in Otters this week. We have been looking at money in Maths and have really enjoyed our writing about the book 'Dinosaurs in the Supermarket'. We particularly enjoyed our Yoga session as we could all relax and enjoy performing yoga poses to the story 'Jungle Party' - we are looking forward to learning more poses over the coming weeks!

Welcome back to all the Amazing Otters! We had a great first week back, and thoroughly enjoyed exploring different tempo and dynamics in Music. First, we used our voices and bodies to make different tempos. However, we really enjoyed using the instruments and experimenting with what noises we could make with them, before exploring the tempo and dynamics with them!

After a really busy week where we performed our nativity, we finished the week making our own Christingles for the Christmas service. We worked really well as a team and we were all able to recall what each part of the Christingle stood for! We also enjoyed eating the sweets after the service!! Merry Christmas from everyone in Otter Class! 

It was the week we had been waiting for.....we got to make our chairs! As you can see, we had so much fun making our chairs for baby bear. We used all of out knowledge from our previous lessons to make sure they were stable and a good working condition for baby bear! Some of us had a few problems, but we were resilient and got there in the end!

We have been very excited in Otter class this week as we have just started our new DT project of trying to make Baby Bears chair. First, we have been looking at the stability of different 3D shapes and seeing which shapes are better. We also got a go on Miss Baker's wobble stool and worked out why it wasn't very stable! Keep a look out for our chairs over the next few weeks, we can't wait to get making!!

In our Maths this week, we have been looking at shapes. Year 1 have been identifying and sorting shapes into different categories - I wonder if you can work out how they sorted them? Year 2 have also been looking at shapes and Mr Squibb set them a challenge to make 3 shapes using 15 lollipop sticks - check out the pictures below to see if they solved the challenge...

Our Science learning, enabled us to look more closely at hygiene and the importance of washing our hands. We used pepper, water and soap to show how important soap is when washing our hands. The pepper acted as the germs and then we used soap to clean the germs away - as you can see from some of the pictures! 

This week, we had a great time supporting Children in Need. We all wore spots or yellow and donated some of our pennies to this  wonderful charity. In class, we coloured Pudsey in and had a brilliant time decorating biscuits! We used yellow icing and smarties to make our biscuits spotty - they tasted as good as they looked too!

In our PE this term we are looking at Gymnastics. We had great fun exploring different shapes today and putting together a short sequence of our favourite shapes. We are already looking forward to adding jumps and rolls into our sequences soon!

We had great fun with our DT project this week. We looked at different mechanisms and then created our very own pivots. We explored different pivots using split pins and card before designing our own moving monsters. As you can see, we had lots of different size monsters and enjoyed ourselves during this project. We are already looking forward to our next DT project next half term!

We finished our History topic with a wonderful treat to The Newt! The children had great fun exploring the ruins of a Roman Villa and were able to compare things from then and now. We really enjoyed our time looking at artefacts from the past and have really enjoyed looking back in time. I was also really proud of all the children's behaviour, they were a real credit to themselves and the whole school!

In our Class Worship this week, we looked at the Fruits of the Spirits. We spoke about the importance of all the fruits individually but also how we would all like to be a 'Fruit Salad' - trying to be a little bit of all the fruits so our lights can shine brightly! Finally, we made some yummy fruit faces to show all the fruits making our lights shine!

In our Art lessons, we have been exploring things that inspire us. We took some time outside to find different things that inspired us to create some abstract art. As you can see we had lots of fun exploring the outside and creating lots of brilliant pictures!

In our RE lesson this week, we have been thinking about why Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah and what they do during the celebration. We tried apples with honey to resemble starting the year in a sweet way - as you can see some of us enjoyed it more than others!!

In our Science this week, we began to learn all about some parts of the body. We went outside and drew around ourselves and then tried to match the words to our pictures. Thankfully, we labelled most of our bodies correctly and we had no feet as hands - ha ha! We are looking forward to finding out more about our bodies in the next few weeks!

We were very excited to be the first class of the year to start our Forest School sessions! During our first session, we remembered all of the rules that we have in Forest School and then we explored the area. We made our own mini Forest school areas and even put little people in there to show how they stay safe - we are very much looking forward to continuing our Forest School sessions this term!

We have had a wonderful first week back in Otter class! We have taken time to get to know all of our new Otter classmates and already began completing some shiny learning! During our first few days, we read a new book called 'Together We Can' and we all agreed that if we all work together and be a great friend we can achieve all our goals - we all designed and made a friendship bracelet to remember to this throughout the year!

It wasn't quite the Summer Walk we were expecting... but we still had a wonderful time! We joined up with Hedgehogs and took part in a variety of different outdoor activities. We could choose from bug hunting, mud kitchen, making a journey stick, making bug hotels, chalk pictures or a senses scavenger hunt! We had so much fun getting mucky and enjoying the rain!

We finished our French learning by taking a plane to France! Our day started by making our passports and boarding passes so we could go on the plane. Mrs Jones checked our passports and boarding passes before we got on the plane. Mr Squibb captained and flew the plane with Madame Ferguson as co-pilot. Once, we arrived in France we had our passports checked by Miss Ackerman and then we went to the French Cafe. We were able to use our French skills to order a drink and snack from Mrs Green and Miss Partridge's Cafe - what a great French Day!!

In our Science, this week we have been looking at different types of trees. We spotted similarities and differences between the trees and then put them into two different categories - Evergreen and Deciduous. We look forward to going out on our Summer walk next week to try and spot some different trees!

We had great fun experimenting in Computing today! We found out ways to make different music with the computers. On the computers, we could choose what instruments and what pitch they played to make our own songs. 

Our final music lesson saw us use all of our knowledge from this half term to create our own storyboard and then create our own sound effects for the story. We could choose the instruments we used and then as a group made decisions to best suit our stories!

In RE, we have been looking at what routines Muslims do before they pray. We sequenced their routine and then had a go at Wudu (washing our faces) as part of their routine. We were amazed that they washed their hands, face, arms and mouth 3 times each!!

We had great fun in PE this week! We had to trust our partner and listen to their instructions. Our partners had to use their positional language to guide us around and over obstacles - we were all really good at this! We even had a go at all working together in one long line!

Our new Geography topic is all about the seaside. We enjoyed sorting out pictures comparing the seaside to to other places. We thought about where we would like to live and why. Some children even told us all about places they visited!

In Science, we have been looking at what plants need to grow. We decided to plant some cress seeds in different substances to see if the cress would grow. Each group also decided to put their plants where they thought they would grow best - we can't wait to see the results!

In PSHE this week we thought about how we might feel in situations that make us unhappy. We used our faces and body language to show our feelings. We also thought about how our bodies might feel on the inside.

We were very fortunate to be joined by Amber for our cricket session this week. She is cricket coach for Somerset girls and brought all her knowledge with her. We had a go at bowling, battling and fielding while also having lots of fun- thank you Amber, we look forward to seeing you next week!

We started Summer 2 with some Teamwork skills and it was a huge success. We had to work together using our communication and trust within each other. Our first job was to successfully get the hoop around the circle and we were not allowed to let go of our partners - we managed 3 hoops at the same time!! Next, we had to work as a team to cross the river and we weren't allowed to touch the floor...but we managed to all complete this too! Finally, we had to shut our eyes and trust our partner to guide us across the river avoiding the obstacles and only allowed to use our positional language - what a super start to the term!

Our Art this week, saw us look at artists who had been inspired by Fauna and Flora. We then thought about how the pictures made us feel and had a go at drawing our favourite parts. We used our art skills to try to add details and experiment with our mark making!

In our Art lesson this week, we brought all of our sculpture learning together to create our very own Bird Sculptures. As you can see we, made our own feathers using all of our art skills and some of us managed to make them stand up using paper clips! We had great fun using all of our skills we have learnt this term together and seeing a finished piece of Art!

We really enjoyed Sports Day! It was a brilliant day for the whole of Otter class, we all had a go at every activity before break time and had lots of fun! After break, we took part in the competitive races and all the children were amazing! 

As this week was Mental Health Awareness week, we took some time to enjoy a book with our friends from Fox class! We really enjoyed sharing a book and listening to them read - some of us even went outside to enjoy the sunshine! What a great afternoon!

In our PSHE lesson today we looked at Hygiene and how we can stay clean. We thought about when we need to wash our hands and discussed how we should wash our hands. We enjoyed experimenting the affects of soap by using water and pepper - as you can see we had great fun exploring this!

In RE this week, we were very fortunate to have a a Jewish visitor called Sue. She came into our class and told us about lots of different things that Jewish people do! We all had some bread and Grapefruit juice and listened to a blessing in Hebrew! It was a wonderful afternoon and we are looking forward to taking our learning into next weeks lesson!

Over the last week, we achieved our goal of 100 Class Merits and we chose to make some SLIME! We had great fun mixing the ingredients together and getting very messy! We also enjoyed playing with our slime and finding out who's slime could stretch the furthest! We are already thinking about what our next treat could be!

During one of our Mental Maths session this week we looked at doubling. We chanted our doubles before making them using the unifix cubes! We also began to spot the relationship between doubling and halving!

In Tennis this week, we looked at holding the racket correctly by 'shaking it's hand'. We practiced balancing the ball on our racket and then controlling the ball on the floor. Our challenge was to see how many 'keepy ups' we could do - some of us tried to use different parts of the rackets too!

In Art this week, we looked a manipulating paper from 2D to 3D. We emptied out scrap paper tray and enjoyed experimenting with paper. We tore, scrunched, curled, twisted and folded the paper to explore what we could turn our paper in to!

In Music this term we are looking at Musical me. We have been listening to different types of folk music and deciding if we we like them or not. We then thought about different places with lots of noise and tried to make soundscapes of these using our bodies and the instruments.

Our Computing sessions this term have seen us look closely at the keyboard and how to add text to a document. We had great fun finding different keys on the keyboard and we all got quicker at typing the alphabet as the lesson went on! We are looking forward to exploring the keyboards and Microsoft Word even more in the coming weeks!

BEEP BEEP DAY!

We really enjoyed our day learning about how to stay safe when crossing the road and being in a car. We role played how we should cross the road, pretending to be cars and humans. Our learning finished with us making posters to help others cross the road safely!

We started the Summer Term with some athletics in the sunshine! It was brilliant to be on the field and enjoy some fresh air. We began by practicing jumping, throwing, running, balancing and working as a team. Our goal is to get better every week so we are ready for Sports Day!

In Art this week, we revisited mark making. This time we used different tools to make the marks with - some were easier than others! We then looked at observational drawings. We found something outside, looked at the patterns and marks on it, before trying our best to draw it in our sketchbooks! It certainly felt easier doing it in the sun too!

We were very lucky to have a Cricket Taster session today with a coach. We had a go at throwing and catching before getting into some batting! It was great fun to try a different sport and challenge ourselves to get better at it! Thank you to Mr Hamblin for organising it for us, we are already looking forward to the next taster session!

Eight of Otter class were chosen to represent the school in the Year 1 and 2 Cross Country event. We had lots of fun running and representing our school! We had a warm up from the sports leaders before the races begun. Our Year 1 team did extremely well and came 2nd! Our Year 2 team were amazing too and managed to get 5th place in their race! They were also treated to a hot chocolate and cookie for begin AMAZING! A huge well done to all of the children, you did us all proud!

This week was our final Forest School session of the year and as normal we had a lot of fun exploring the outdoors! We had an Easter Egg hunt to finish - we all found lots of eggs each and used good team work skills to help our friends! We finished Forest School by having some choosing time, where we chose our favourite thing to do and enjoy it again! We cannot wait to go back to Forest School next year!

Today we had a wonderful trip to Salisbury Cathedral to develop our learning about the Easter Story. We met different people from the story who told us what happened and how they felt. As a class, we retold the Easter story through a bracelet. We had to choose a colour to represent that part of the story and explain why we chose that colour! In the afternoon, we wrote our own Easter prayers and used our art skills to collage them too! It was a fantastic trip!

On our last day of term, we took part in an Experiencing Easter Day, where we went around to different stations to complete activities linked to the Easter story! We wrote prayers, designed pebbles, threw away our sins and re-enacted parts of the story. It was another amazing day for us to consolidate our learning of the Easter story!

In our penultimate Forest School session we looked to create a Bug Hotel for the minibeasts and insects in the Forest. We worked in small groups to create a nice place for the bugs to stay and relax. The children made their own choices on where and how to make their Bug Hotel - with lots of groups doing very different things! Once again we had great fun at Forest school and thankfully it was a 'little' less muddy! 

In DT, we have been looking at Fruits and Vegetables. First we sorted the food into two piles, some were trickier than others. We looked closely at the food to see if they had seeds in them. Next we looked at where Fruits and Vegetables come from. Finally, we tried some Fruits to find out what they tasted like - as you can see from the pictures, some were a little sour! We are very excited to make our Fruit Kebabs later this week!

On Thursday we had a theme day which was all about Our World and our environment! We took part in a range of different activities; designing posters, Forest School, Seed Bombs and other Eco activities. We had lots of fun thinking about our environment and how we can keep it a happy and healthy place for all. As you can see from the pictures, we really enjoyed getting muddy and making the seed bombs!

WOW what a muddy session!! We had lots of fun in Forest School this week as we were making faces on trees with mud/clay! As you can see, we enjoyed getting a 'little' dirty! We all chose different faces to make and tried to create them after next to our clay version! We also found some Jellyear plants - very unusual!

In Science this week, we have been looking at changing the shape of materials and objects by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching. We enjoyed making predictions before testing to see if we were right! As you can see, we tried a range of materials - some were more successful than the others!

Spring Walk Day! We had all sorts of weather during our Spring walk, but we had so much fun! We joined up with Badgers and Foxes to enjoy our Spring Walk today, all the children were super excited to explore the mud and water - as you can expect! We didn't see many signs of Spring just yet, but we did find a few buds on the trees beginning to form!

What a wonderful World Book Day! The children all looked fabulous today and we had a great day celebrating reading. We made some bunting for the classroom and our own book marks, before this afternoon lots of our fabulous parents came to hear us read, read to us or look at some books with us - thank you for joining us for a super day!

In Maths this week, the year one children have been looking at length and height. We started to measure objects from around the room with cubes - as you can see we had lots of fun! However, we did find out that for longer and taller objects it did take a long time!

We had a very muddy time at Forest School this week, but it was so much fun! With the rain the day before, it made the area really boggy, but we enjoyed squelching through the mud! This week we had a go at building and creating some dens. We worked in small groups and as you can see above made some amazing dens! We had some extras within our dens including; windows, clocks, toilets and doors! Once again we had a wonderful time and our already looking forward to next weeks adventures!

Over the last two weeks in our class worship we have been looking at how different the world would feel if we couldn't hear anything. As a class, we thought about ways of communicating with people who are deaf. We have been learning British Sign Language so we can communicate with everyone. We have learnt the alphabet and how to say 'My name is...', as well as this we have began learning some greetings; Hello, Goodbye, Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Night. We are looking forward to learning more signs in the coming weeks!

It was Tuesday so we were all very excited to head back down to Forest School for our second session! The weather was a bit different this time as we enjoyed walking through the boggy ground and getting rather muddy. This week our main activity was to make Tripods in order to make a bench/chair. As you can see, we had lots of fun making them - some more successful than others! We also enjoyed being outside and making other wonderful creations! The countdown is already on for next week!

In RE this week, we began to look at the Easter story. We looked closely at the word Salvation and what this meant for Jesus, but also what it meant for us. In groups, we acted out different parts of the story and explained why we had decided to do certain things!

What a FAB first week back we have had!! We particularly enjoyed going to Forest School for the first time this year. The children were amazing walking down and had lots of fun exploring our outdoor learning space. We had a go at finding lots of different things, and finished by using nature to write our names! As you can guess, we are already looking forward to going again next week!

In our mental Maths sessions this week, we were looking at our numbers to 20. We wrote them out with chalk and then played some games; standing on odd numbers, even numbers and then doubles. The Year 2 children had some time to practice their timestables on Hit the Button!

Our Art topic this term is Exploring Watercolours. We started by remembering what primary colours were before going on to make some secondary colours. We began to explore waterclours by seeing what the water did to the paint and we let our paint brush go for a walk!

Egg-cellant Science!

We had great fun testing out our parachutes this week to see if we could safely land an egg without it cracking! As you can see from the pictures, all of our parachutes were different because we all made different scientific choices - some were more successful than others! We certainly had a 'smashing' time though!

Wow what a fab day! We really enjoyed our Art and Music Theme day. There were lots of activities for us to do and we were extra lucky to have a visit from Bubble Bach - they were AMAZING! We spent time watching their bubble art and listening to creative music. We also created our own collages based on the music we were listening too! Finally, we took part in a drama workshop which was really enjoyable! Thank you Mrs Atkins and Miss Baker for organising the day for us!

Boomwhacker fun!

We had great fun playing the Boomwhackers this week - we learnt that all of the whackers are different colours because they play different notes! We used videos to help us to practice. It was great fun exploring the Pitch and Tempo of the Boomwhackers too!

In our PE this week, we continued to look at balancing but we also began to look at dribbling using different equipment. We spent time practicing both of our skills before having some races against each other. It was great fun to work as a team and keep warm! We are enjoying our Multi-Skills this half term but we are looking forward to doing PE with some sunshine!

We had great fun on Maths day! We played bingo to help recognise our numbers from 0-90 and we also experimented with shapes. We made some amazing Tangrams as you can see from the pictures above. We really enjoyed a whole day of Maths and problem solving. Thank you Mr Hamblin for organising it!

In Music, this term we have been looking at Pitch and Tempo when playing instruments. However, this week we decided to find different objects from around the classroom to try and play a tune to. We explored different Tempo's and Pitch's, some were easier than others - as you can see we had great fun finding some unusual instruments!

One of our morning jobs this week was to use our imagination and be 'Creative'. We used Lego, Polydron, Straws and Cogs, Poppets, Suckers, Knex and Construction. As you can see from the pictures, we made some Otterly Amazing models and sculptures that we were very proud of!

We have really missed our Otter friends who have been poorly this week, and we have got our fingers crossed that everyone will be back next week! As a class, we decided to give our classroom an extra clean to get rid of all the germs. We all worked together to tidy and make sure it was clean ready for next week - cleaning classrooms is quite fun apparently!! 

We had great fun exploring different ways we can make the number 7 in our Mastering Number session this week. We found lots of different ways to make 7 using a different amount of numbers - we are looking forward to exploring numbers more in the coming weeks!

Our topic this term in Science is Changing Materials, and this week we began looking at different types of materials. We looked at how different materials have different purposes and they can have a variety of properties. Our challenge was to try and find the 'Bendiest' stick, as you can see from the pictures above we had great fun finding and bending sticks!

We had great fun having a play on our new playground equipment this week! We all had a turn on everything we wanted to and made sure we played safely. We decided and agreed on the rules for equipment, and we can't wait to play on it again!

Otter class have had a wonderful first week back. Even in the freezing temperatures, we managed to get outside and practise our balancing skills - with beanbags on our heads!! The children had great fun and are looking forward to developing their skills further over the coming weeks!